European clean sweep

Chelsea are bidding to become only the fourth side to win all three of Uefa's major club competitions. The Blues, who won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1971 and 1998, plus last season's Champions League, would emulate Juventus, Ajax and Bayern Munich.

But they survived any further damage after Natcho's spot-kick made it 3-2 to the home side.

It means the much-maligned Benitez remains on course to win two trophies for the west London club and finish in the top four of the Premier League.

Chelsea's dominant display at Stamford Bridge a week earlier left Rubin with a difficult task, which was made even harder following Torres's early opener.

Frank Lampard showed remarkable vision to send Torres clear with a clinical first-time pass and when Rubin goalkeeper Sergei Ryzhikov raced out of his goal, the Spaniard coolly lobbed the ball into the empty net for his 19th goal of the season.

It left Rubin needing three goals to force extra-time but the complexion of the tie could have been different, had Rubin not spurned a glorious opportunity seconds earlier.

The Russians should have taken the lead when skipper Karadeniz picked out Roman Eremenko in space inside the visitors' penalty area, only for the Finland international to fire straight at Chelsea skipper John Terry.

No Blues for Ferreira

Veteran Portuguese defender Paulo Ferreira made only his sixth appearance of the season in Moscow. All six matches have been in different competitions.

Uefa ruled the match should be played in the Russian capital after concerns about Kazan's Central Stadium, and only 19,000 spectators were present in the 80,000-capacity ground.

Rubin boss Kurban Berdyev argued the switch had damaged his side's chances of progressing but, after the early blow of Torres's goal, the Russians gave themselves a lifeline shortly after the second-half restart.

Pablo Orbaiz's in-swinging cross from the right was powerfully met by Spanish compatriot Marcano, whose accurate header flew into Petr Cech's top corner.

The Russians were left deflated again when Moses stylishly steered past Ryzhikov following a neat exchange of passes with Ramires.

But they refused to give up as Karadeniz climbed above Dutch teenager Nathan Ake, making only his second professional start for Chelsea, to bury Cristian Ansaldi's cross from the left touchline.

Marcano again found space inside the Blues' six-yard box, only to flash a header wide, before Natcho blasted past Cech after substitute Aleksandr Ryazantsev fell under Cesar Azpilicueta's innocuous challenge.

Chelsea saw out the final 15 minutes to reach their 18th semi-final appearance of the Roman Abramovich era, where they will face either Benfica, Fenerbahce or Basel.

I sense someone has a hankering to turn blue, come on esg throw away that red shirt and buy yourself a nice crisp blue one, you know you want to, your a secret Chelsea admirer, we all know it, you know it, so stop denying it and come on over to the best club in the PL.

@213 "the twenty five years head start on outspending everybody else" - An interesting theory, factually speaking, massively incorrect. If u look over the years, the likes of LFC, cfc (small c), LUFC, BRFC, NUFC etc have all spent more than Utd. They simply played better. cfc only got there by spending the GDP of Guatemala & 4 all their youth talk, they're still splurging 2 win the micky mouse cup

193. When you think about it, for the number of fans, the huge commercial success of MU, the twenty five years head start on outspending everybody else; the fact that first Arsenal, then Chelsea, and now Chelsea and City have managed to compete with MU shows how cack MU really are. They really should be buying the refs bigger and better xmas presents.

@211 nah mate, I lived there whilst I was travelling a few years back, but from the north & live in the big smoke now. I don't think Utd fans have any hankering 2b cfc fans. They have class. That's the city fans who can't decide who they support! Lol

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